http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/07/another-brick-in-the-wall.html http://wildhunt.org/blog/?p=3127 (guest post by Elysia Gallo)
I’m committed to becoming another brick in the wall – one that makes it stronger – rather than becoming another sucker who punches a hole in that wall. What wall am I talking about? The wall of separation between church and state.
The Establishment Clause provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” Jefferson later famously referred to this clause in a letter as having built “a wall of separation between church and state.” Like all walls (the Gaza wall, the US-Mexican border, the Great Firewall of China), this wall is not impermeable. It protects us from being forced by the government to join or financially support a church, but it does allow in streams of personal religious expression – the other right we hold so dear. The Constitution ensures that religious expression on a personal level is acceptable, as long as our government does not endorse one religion over another. However, there are many times when it does just that, whether purposely or simply because the majority thoughtlessly and naively sees itself as the default mode.
For example, when a crèche turns up in front of city hall, minority faiths who want equal representation in the public sphere often have to ask for inclusion after the fact. In many cases– in Wisconsin and Washington state, for example – the consequent opening of the door to all faiths is quickly followed by a swift slamming of it when too many requests flood in or the displays cause too much controversy. Baby Jesus and a menorah are one thing, but a Wiccan pentacle? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? The Festivus Pole? The mainstream can’t take it!
A poll last year found that “83% [of respondents] say a nativity scene on city property should be legal, but only 60% say a display honoring Islam during Ramadan should be legal. Overall, 58% of all Americans feel both should be legal, while 15% feel both should be illegal.” If the majority of Americans are for the nativity but only slightly more than half would open up that space to all faiths regardless of their personal religious views, you have the majority effectively suppressing the minority’s religious expression. We need to put a stop to this practice altogether, or else this stream could become a flood that washes away our Constitutional protection against such state-sanctioned oppression. The Constitution is supposed to protect the rights of minorities, not strengthen those of the majority – that’s what the Civil Rights movement was all about.
While not all Christians are trying to push their religion on us, not all non-mainstream religions are without ulterior motives of their own…
Should we support proselytizing by non-mainstream religious groups?
You may remember Jason blogging about the case of a fringe religious group called Summum trying to get its Seven Aphorisms erected in a city park in Pleasant Grove, UT, on equal standing with the Ten Commandments already displayed there.
However, Summum had challenged another city for the same reasons – the city of Duchesne, UT. While the Pleasant Grove case proceeded to the Supreme Court, Duchesne instead reluctantly moved its Ten Commandments piece to a cemetery to avoid further litigation. Surprisingly enough, this was not seen as a victory in Summum’s eyes; in an article published after the monument had been moved,
“We are saddened that the Ten Commandments monument has been removed from the city park in Duchesne,” Summum President Su Menu said.
“Summum has never requested that religious monuments be removed from government property. We have only asked that all religions be given equal access,” Menu said. “Just as the citizens of Duchesne have benefited from the display of the Decalogue, so, too, would they have benefited from the display of our Seven Aphorisms.”
So was Summum ultimately just trying to win converts, or did they believe that all beliefs could peacefully coexist if everyone had equal access to them? Would we ever want to erect a statue of the 42 Principles of Maat, or the Nine Noble Virtues, or the Wiccan Rede in a public park simply because others “may benefit” from its display? Proselytizing is not a central tenet of any Pagan faith I can think of, but does that mean we should bar others from doing so? If we are all for tolerance and acknowledging the validity of an infinite number of other paths, why would we be intolerant of a Ten Commandments statue in a park or courtroom?
And if we went to all the courthouses of the nation to dismantle any Christian-themed decorations, then what of Pagan decorations like Lady Liberty? Would you get rid of Moses yet keep Confucius? What of Mars in front of the US Capitol, or the Three Fates and the four elements in front of the Supreme Court building? Obviously we live in a society where religious expression is not easily extracted from the public sphere; indeed, in many cases it makes our lives richer.
Conversely, if tolerance is one of our core beliefs as Pagans, how can we tolerate intolerance and religious aggression? Wiccans say “An’ it harm none, do as ye will” – so the question then becomes whether Christians are actually doing harm by erecting the Ten Commandments in public places, placing nativities on City Halls, and so forth.
Pagans and Atheists – strange bedfellows?
Unfortunately what may have once been the simple, well-intentioned decorating of buildings and parks in the past is now being pushed as part of a malicious and divisive political agenda. That fits the definition of “harm” well enough for me. You can see this again and again as part of the “Culture Wars” that fundamentalist Christians believe they must wage to stop the secularization of America. In the words of Green Bay City Council President Chad Fradette, who placed the nativity on government property, “I’m trying to take this fight to the people who need to be fought. I’ll keep going on this until this group imposing Madison values crawls back into its hole and never crawls out.”
Because of people like Chad, I’m more inclined these days to crawl into bed with the atheists – to stop, or at least to impede, the progress of the Christian right juggernaut that is hell-bent on tying up taxpayer’s money in long, drawn-out court battles revolving around their supposed “persecution” by a secularized America. I realize that in not supporting religious displays on public land I’m in a small minority of Americans – but what else is new?
It’s not just Chad fighting to get us back in our hole – many Christians are organizing to be more proactive in thrusting their nativities into the public sphere, to deliberately inflame others. The response of setting up a Wiccan pentacle is just feeding into that – a retribution against having the nativity on government property. And then that pentacle gets trashed, which is just more revenge visited upon retribution. Does it make any sense? Can’t we just nip it in the bud by saying no to everyone before it gets ugly? Can’t religious displays be simply relegated to private homes, churches and temples? Why bring it to city property or schools in the first place?
A huge chorus of secularists saying “no” to these displays will probably be heard more loudly than one or two minority faiths’ disjointed efforts to fight these assaults or gain equal standing on their own.
One atheist organization, the Secular Coalition for America, has been lobbying Washington of late for initiatives that Pagans may also support, such as eliminating faith-based policies that impose mainstream religious tenets on the rest of us through discriminatory hiring, weakening science-based education and health services, and proselytizing through charity. They are also urging more atheists to come out of the closet; this article about their lobbying efforts reveals that of 23 privately self-proclaimed atheists in the House and Senate, only one was willing to go public with it! Ultimately they, too, fear PR damage on the basis of the mainstream American belief that only Christians can be moral or ethical and that atheists are necessarily evil, deluded, liberal or untrustworthy. (Sound familiar? Such labels are often applied to Pagans, too.)
As Herb Silverman, president of the Secular Coalition, wrote to me in an email,
“Our mission is twofold: to promote non-theism and work for the separation of religion and government. We are on your side on just about all cases. […] I think it is a good idea for all of our groups to work together on the main issues and also to work for the visibility and respectability of our constituencies. The more Atheists and Pagans come out of their closets, the better off we will all be.”
Besides the Secular Coalition and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, there are more inclusive groups fighting for the same ideals (because believers of any faith can be secularists, too), such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State – the very same organization that helped Roberta Stewart and Circle Sanctuary with the pentacle quest.
What do you think? Do you want to join the atheists and other secularists to ensure that minority rights don’t get trampled by keeping faith out of the public sphere, where we still can? Or will it be more effective to fight for better minority faith inclusion in the long run? How should we respond when “culture warriors” provoke us to action? | 
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They may not make the best coffee, but from now through August 3, McDonald's will give away free 7-ounce Iced Mochas and 8-ounce Hot Mochas every Monday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at participating locations (of course). No coupon is needed, and you don't need to purchase anything to score your free caffeine fix. [
Windows only: 
First, the supplies you'll need. I purchased the items I needed from Lowe's, the big box hardware store, and from Meijer's, a large grocery chain. You could use any solar light if you took it apart carefully enough, but the ones we used were extremely simple to take apart and were the cheapest ones, by far, on the shelf. Look in the lighting section at Lowe's for the "
We experimented frosting the inside and the outside of the jars to see what kind of effect it yielded. Our recommendation would be to frost the outside. Frosting the inside was a horrible pain, the coating was inconsistent, and it took way longer to dry. Frosting the outside was simple, the coat was even and smooth, and it keeps the glass from shining which adds to the glowing effect. One critical element: Do not frost the lid! The lid has to remain clear for the solar panel to work effectively.
Here is the matte finish of a jar frosted on the outside. As mentioned in the notes on the previous photo, it looks nicer and was ten times easier to apply.
Taking apart the solar lamps is a simple affair. Use a screw driver or a skinny chisel to gently pry the solar panel loose from the aluminum housing. The wires and important stuff are nearly dead center so as long as you don't shove the screw driver in deep or jerk it up hard, you're very unlikely to damage anything.
Once you have the panel pried away from the housing you'll see three glue-like smudges underneath. These smudges are some sort of silicone-like paste used to cover the screw heads. We didn't bother to scrape it away, just push the head of a small Phillips head screw driver into it and start unscrewing. It isn't very thick and scrapes away when you pull up the screw.
Gently wiggle the electronic guts free from the aluminum case. The guts are pretty simple and sturdy, if you need to gently pry with the same screw driver you used to pop off the solar panels, everything should be fine.
Unless you want to have to resolder everything, you'll need to cut the aluminum housing to keep everything intact without the hassle of repairing all the wires. We used a small pair of snips to snip the aluminum and then two needle nose pliers to pull the metal apart and slip the panel and guts free. If you don't have snips you can use two pairs of pliers to gently flex the metal back and forth until it snaps.
Here is the assembly free of the housing. Nothing fancy, a plastic case for the battery, a small circuit board, the LED, and of course the solar panel and the light sensor. On three out of the four we took apart the light sensor worked its way free—it's only taped in—just place it back into the hole in the solar panel and secure it with some tape.
If you're working outside on a sunny day, by the time you've taken your first lamp apart the frosting spray has most likely already dried. The solar panel is a nearly perfect fit and slips right into the hollow in the lid of the canning jar. The battery and circuit assembly can be pushed gently behind it and secured in place with packing tape.
The first jar is completely assembled and ready to charge in the sun. The particular lamp from Lowe's that we selected has a removable rechargeable battery inside rated at 600mAh. We opted to keep the original battery and see how it performed but if you're looking for extended life right off the bat you can upgrade the battery to a higher mAh rating with a better Ni-Cd AA battery.
After charging them for a few hours after construction, we put them out on the desk for a test run. Here you see all four. The white one has no filter, the two blue ones have the tint made from an Aquafina bottle, and the red tint made from a Gatorade bottle. They were much brighter than we anticipated; after all, the lamp was only $5.
The sole white lamp, isolated to show what a basic job looks like.
All four on table, clustered around the umbrella pole. The dollar was added for scale and to show the amount of light cast off. It's difficult to tell from the picture but at the table we had no problem reading even the tiniest print on the dollar.
The sun jars shot from a second story window, throwing enough light to illuminate a circular table with a diameter of six feet.
Earlier this week, we asked about 
Whether you're planning a last minute get-together or have been anticipating their arrival for some time, striking the right balance between too many and too little house guests can make or break your time together. Here's a rule of thumb to follow.
Consider yourself a conscientious voter? Legistalker makes it easy to keep an eye on the officials you voted in and see if you voted for hope, change, or a solid dose of the status quo.